If they don't win, it's a crying shame

Published 2:53 pm, Monday, July 7, 2014

Last week, I was driving around doing errands in the afternoon. The Giants were playing a day game. When I turned the game on, the Giants were trailing 5-1. It was discouraging, but I love baseball on the radio. The rhythms, the anecdotes, the sudden bursts of action - all great.

The Giants eventually lost 7-2. Jon Miller on the radio was great anyway.

When I was a kid, I used to listen to the Dodgers games on Saturdays. The radio was located in a small cottage behind our house. I would slump in a chair and listen intently. My mother would lie on the couch and doze. She said baseball was great to nap to.

I could never nod off. I was a total kid fan. I had baseball cards and relished particularly the Dodgers cards. I tried to get as much information about the Dodgers players as possible. I knew the probable starting lineup and the probable batting order. When that changed, I wondered why.

Nothing like a summer afternoon in Los Angeles, sitting in a cool place, listening to Vin Scully.

But I'm not a Dodgers fan anymore. I love Vin Scully, but I don't love his team. They must be made to taste defeat. They must pay for their hubris. I am a Giants fan now. I am a Northern California kind of guy.

There was a time just recently when being a Giants fan was a whole lot of fun. Two world championships! New heroes every day! We were scrappy, and somehow scrappy won the day. Well, that and great pitching. Talent helps too, even more than scrappy.

It's an even-numbered year. We do well in even-numbered years. When the 2014 season started, we looked just wonderful. We hit, we pitched, we won. We kept winning. It was easy to be a Giants fan; wins were as natural as fresh cantaloupe.

May - what a great month May was. We had the best record in baseball. We were running away with the division. Sure, we might cool off - everybody does. But we had built ourselves a nice cushion. Surely this was our year - again.

Then came June. Then came a horrendous slump. We looked awful. Tim Hudson and Matt Cain flamed out. When the pitching wasn't collapsing, the hitting was. The bottom of the lineup: Oy. We have a minor league system, but what good is it doing? The called-up players failed to impress.

There's Timmy, of course, who chose right now to find himself as a pitcher. He is among the few bright spots.

So what's a fan to do? As I see it, there are three choices:

Hope. This is the default position of all fans. That's what makes them fans. No matter how bleak the situation, the real fan continues to believe. The front-runners drop off the bandwagon, but the bandwagon keeps moving.

There are Chicago Cubs fans, for heaven's sake. The Cubs haven't won a World Series since Caligula. Yet fans still go to games. They buy jackets and T-shirts and hats with the Cubs logo. They say that no one understands their pain, and they're probably right.

Still, they persist. They have faith that, one day, their ballclub will get it right. Compared with Cubs fans, Giants fans have nothing to complain about. It's been a great run.

And things could be worse. We still have a pretty good record. Slumps do not last forever. Injured players get better. Pitchers work on their mechanics. A record as terrible as we had in June is a statistical aberration; we will certainly come back to the mean eventually.

But things are really troubling right now. So you have the next option:

Despair. You're still a fan, but now you expect the worst. You cringe like a beaten dog when the Giants play. Each defeat is another validation of your bleak view. You moan. You look at your Giants hat sitting in the corner, and you wonder whether it's all worth it.

You're having an existential crisis. But perhaps it is the only sensible approach. Prepare for the worst, they say. So that's what you're doing. You're being realistic, but you have no choice.

Well, yes, you do:

Become an A's fan. Sweet little team there on the east side of the bay. Their stadium is hopeless, but the team is wonderful. They have the best record in baseball. They're lovable, they're united - and they need fans. Heck, you could do that. Find life on the sunny side again.

Of course, you'd be a traitor. You'd be a yellow-bellied coward. Let the A's develop their fan base some other way. A ballpark that doesn't leak sewage would be a good start.

But all praise to the A's. I root for them until they play the Giants. And I am staying the course. I am still hopeful. It may be unreasoning, but it's real.

In which we review our options in the face of multiple disappointments.

"If it had grown up," she said to herself, "it would have made a dreadfully ugly child, but it makes rather a handsome jcarroll@sfchronicle.com

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